ARB Bushings Need Attention
Posted on Jun 15, 2023
Of course, the 911 has been running great, as usual but it did have a couple of issues, we wanted to take care of before the season got under way.
We noticed a while ago, when swapping our wheels and tires, that the front anti-roll bar bushings were looking a little tired. Not really surprising considering the were OE and the thrashing they must have seen during all the rallycrosses we previously did with the car. The swap looked straightforward enough so we ordered stock replacement bushings from our friends at Pelican Parts and started to remove the anti-roll bar. It looked as if we could remove the two brackets and bushings on the lateral part of the bar and the bar would just slide out of its control are bushings. It wouldn’t. We found we had to remove the control arms as well making the job bigger because this meant removing the torsion bars as well. We hadn’t ordered new control arm bushings but, fortunately, ours looked OK. We plan on a full suspension refurb in the future so were happy to put these back in for now. With everything now off the car all that was left was to replace the four ARB bushings and bolt it back together. We tried really hard to mark the locations of everything before we took it apart so we hopefully wouldn’t have to realign the car. That didn’t work. When we got it all back together and took it for a test drive, we found the steering wheel off center by about5 degrees. Off to Munk’s Motors for an alignment.
We wish we could report that handling and performance were improved to some earth-shattering degree but, alas, our butt dyno did not concur. We’re sure it’s better but we can’t tell. Guess we’re not the sensitive types.
After getting the valve covers back on and taking the car on an extensive test drive, we realised it was no longer leaking! We doubt the previous leak had been from the valve covers and have concluded that the vacuum hose must have caused the oil system to become pressurized in some way and blew oil out of somewhere. Regardless, it doesn’t leek now and that’s good enough for us.
We noticed a while ago, when swapping our wheels and tires, that the front anti-roll bar bushings were looking a little tired. Not really surprising considering the were OE and the thrashing they must have seen during all the rallycrosses we previously did with the car. The swap looked straightforward enough so we ordered stock replacement bushings from our friends at Pelican Parts and started to remove the anti-roll bar. It looked as if we could remove the two brackets and bushings on the lateral part of the bar and the bar would just slide out of its control are bushings. It wouldn’t. We found we had to remove the control arms as well making the job bigger because this meant removing the torsion bars as well. We hadn’t ordered new control arm bushings but, fortunately, ours looked OK. We plan on a full suspension refurb in the future so were happy to put these back in for now. With everything now off the car all that was left was to replace the four ARB bushings and bolt it back together. We tried really hard to mark the locations of everything before we took it apart so we hopefully wouldn’t have to realign the car. That didn’t work. When we got it all back together and took it for a test drive, we found the steering wheel off center by about5 degrees. Off to Munk’s Motors for an alignment.
We wish we could report that handling and performance were improved to some earth-shattering degree but, alas, our butt dyno did not concur. We’re sure it’s better but we can’t tell. Guess we’re not the sensitive types.
After getting the valve covers back on and taking the car on an extensive test drive, we realised it was no longer leaking! We doubt the previous leak had been from the valve covers and have concluded that the vacuum hose must have caused the oil system to become pressurized in some way and blew oil out of somewhere. Regardless, it doesn’t leek now and that’s good enough for us.